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The Green Gremlin has shocked her supporters by insisting Germany made a big “mistake” by shutting down its nuclear reactors.

Personally, I think the bigger mistake was allowing a Swedish teenager to dictate world energy policy. But I digress.

The Goblin of Doom’s sudden change of heart on nuclear power sent her followers into a meltdown. Pun absolutely intended.

After all, it was only 100 days ago that How Dare You tweeted about how nuclear power was a “false solution” for which “no amount of lobbyism and greenwashing will ever make it green”.

So what happened?

Well, life comes at you fast.

Chilled to the Bone

Germans face a freezing winter and, because of their reliance on intermittent energy sources, lack the necessary power to heat their homes.

Cold weather kills 14 times more people each year than heatwaves. So there’s nothing like an icy future to focus the mind.

Suddenly even the most ardent ideologues are being forced to deal with the world as it is, rather than the world as they wish it to be.

Asked about Germany’s decision to close down its nuclear power plants which, up until 2021 had been supplying a quarter of the country’s electricity, the pigtailed prophet of catastrophe said:

“If we had them already running, I feel it’s a mistake to close them down to focus on coal.”

And then, when asked if they should be closed back down again after this winter, Thunberg said:

“It depends. We don’t know what will happen after this.”

Basic Necessity

Now I’m no Tim Flannery, but I’m going to take a wild guess at what will happen after this.

I’m betting we will still need electricity.

And I’m going to bet that will need that electricity to be reliable, and affordable and — if you’re wetting your bed because of a naturally occurring trace gas that helps plants grow — low on carbon dioxide emissions.

Well, nuclear power produces less emissions than hydro, or solar, or wind. And unlike battery storage capable of allowing renewable (by which I mean intermittent) energy to power cities, nuclear power actually exists!

The technology has existed for more than 50 years, and there are almost 450 nuclear reactors around the world.

Sure there have been a couple of accidents — notably Chernobyl in 1986 and Fukushima in 2011 — but a couple of aeroplanes have crashed in the past 50 years and yet everyone’s still queuing up for an economy seat on Malaysian Airlines.

Safe Bet

If you think the world is going to be incinerated by global warming because of man-made emissions then you will be pro-nuclear power.

And if you don’t think the world is going to be incinerated by global warming because of man-made emissions but you do want cheap, reliable power, then you will be pro-nuclear power.

If, however, you claim to be worried about a climate emergency and yet insist that you are against nuclear power, then you are nothing but an ideologue determined to turn the first world into the third world to stick it to the man.

It’s tempting to say that I can finally agree with Greta. But that would be wrong. Greta finally agrees with me. And not before time.

We need to go nuclear. And if anyone still needs convincing, there’s a Swedish teen who’s happy to have a go atom. (See what I did there? I’ll show myself out.)

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Originally published at The James Macpherson Report.

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Photo: Stefan Müller/Wikimedia Commons